Okay.
That's a really good question. It's one that I've been thinking about, especially after I received this invitation.
Our first nation doesn't have an REA. I'm a little bit leery about it, honestly. I think there's some history with the government, maybe, that is in play. I ran into Minister Hajdu this morning at the airport, and I actually approached her. I asked her why post-secondary funds can't be included in an REA, because if we as a community had the power to say that we needed this much money for educating our students who are from the community and who live outside the community, that would give us greater power. Then we're not running into problems like my colleague here had when she was a mature student.
I was a mature student, and I was fortunate to have access to post-secondary funding through Northern Nishnawbe Education Council, which runs out of Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay. Right now Lac Seul's post-secondary funds are channelled through NNEC. We're leaving it like that, because we may benefit more from it. We share the funding with the northern communities north of Sioux Lookout. If there's one community that has, say, five spots with NNEC and they only send three, it might be a Lac Seul member who has access to that funding.
If I pull away from there at this point.... Without having the promise of our needs being met in terms of post-secondary funding, then we're going to stay there to benefit the community. But then, at the same time, it feels like we're stealing from another community, from some of our cousins and our bothers and sisters.